England Boccia Young Leaders Award

During this year’s Sports Leaders UK Programme, pupils were fortunate enough to take part in a Boccia Young Leaders Award. The Sports Leaders enhanced their Boccia officiating skills and knowledge of the game in preparation for the primary and high schools Boccia tournaments, being held at the TASAT over the next few months. The Key Newsletter December2017 Stage 4 pupils are now officially qualified Boccia England Young Leaders and are currently working towards gaining their Bronze, Silver and Gold awards. Thank you to Paul Ashbridge (Boccia England representative) for Welcome to The Trust December Newsletter. running the course and Jeffrey Hoey (North Sport & Health Visit our website at www.ashleyschool.co.uk Partnership) for funding this qualification for the pupils. Facebook: The Ashley-School Academy Trust or see https://www.facebook.com/The-Ashley-School-Academy-Trust-201492629958562/ or Twitter: tas_ac or see https://twitter.com/tas_ac

North Suffolk Primary Boccia Welcome to our final newsletter of 2017. th On Thursday 30 November TASAT played I hope you enjoy reading about our varied curriculum activities and Christmas festivities. host to the North Suffolk Primary Boccia Tournament. Six schools entered this We are still awaiting our OfSTED reports from their visits last month, as soon as we receive year’s event consisting of pupils from these we will publish them on our website. Thank you for those of you who took time to complete Albert Pye, Reydon, Beccles, Northfield, Poplars and TASAT. The tournament was ‘Parent View’ and/or meet with the inspection team. organised by Jeffrey Hoey (Sainsbury’s Finally, I would like to wish you a safe and relaxing Christmas & New Year. We look forward to School Games Organiser), who requested the assistant of our Sports Leaders as they seeing pupils back on Thursday 4th January 2018. had recently become qualified Boccia England officials. The event was a fantastic opportunity for our Key Stage 2 pupils who managed to finish in fifth and tenth place. Well done to all the KS3 pupils who entered our Christmas Card design competition! Gabrielle, 8R was the winner for 2017, Pupils were rewarded with a fantastic Panathlon medal and certificate for their with Lacy May, 8M in 2nd place and Arthur, 7M coming in 3rd place. excellent game play and sportsmanship. Well done to our Boccia teams for their achievement and to the Sports Leaders for officiated superbly throughout the event. We also have 4 highly commended pupils, Sammy, 8R, Tom, 8M, Rhiannah 8R, and Rudi, 8R.

Carol Service

It was good to see so many families and friends supporting our children in our annual Carol Service. KS4 Expressive Arts group told how Christmas is celebrated differently in other countries. KS3 Performing Arts groups provided the choir, bell ringers and a group of glittering dancers, adding to the fun of the morning! KS2 played the role of the characters of the Nativity tableau with narrators from all three key stages telling the traditional Nativity story. A short message was given by Rev. Askwith before Ms Garrett ended the service with thanks to everyone and left the KS3 singers to wish everyone a Merry Christmas in song. St Margaret’s Church was almost full on a chilly morning but I am sure that everyone left with a warm feeling after such a wonderful performance by everyone.

Coffee morning success!

It was lovely to meet many of you after the Carol service last week. The Transition Ambassadors did a great job serving teas, coffees and mince pies. Very welcome after being in the church which, as always, was cool! There was a good atmosphere and a chance to catch up with other parents and carers over a cuppa. Thanks for joining us! Sam Bover & Louise Holmes. Term Dates

KS2 took to the stage on Tuesday 5th December for their annual Nativity Pupils break up on Tuesday 19th December. Pupils return after Christmas on Thursday 4th January 2018. performance. This year the story was called ‘Jesus Christmas Party’. Along with acting, the pupils performed songs to accompany their humorous tale. Each child in the key stage had a part to play either on Pupil & Family Support Team stage as a character in the familiar Christmas story or bravely reading to the parents as a narrator. We also had a pupil on sound and music Since returning to school after the October half term pupils have been working even harder in the sessions provided by controls and this job was done perfectly. This year we were very lucky to have two musicians playing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ on the the Pupil and Family Support Team. Pupils have been engaged and committed in all the sessions and it has been a keyboards showing great talent and confidence. Along with this many of the stars on stage had progressed to having speaking roles pleasure to work with everyone. We hope everyone enjoys the break from school. We look forward to seeing you all in which is a big step for our pupils. A wonderful performance watched by many families and friends of the children. Thank you for the new year; returning on the 4th January. Please remember to stay safe and wrap up warm when outside. Those of you supporting KS2. May we take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy Christmas! who are lucky enough to receive new phones/tablets over Christmas, please keep safe and be careful if using social media. Wishing you all a Happy Christmas and a Peaceful New Year from The Pupil and Family Support Team. Marion, Sam, Lee and Louise.

RPO Visit to School Firstly, I would like to say a huge and sincere thank you to each parent and carer for supporting our pupils throughout this term. The children were mesmerised by the instruments and Parents and Carers Get Together I have been delighted to see so many of our pupils receive thoroughly enjoyed the buzzy bee section as well as the achievement awards, merit certificates and subject specific Alton Towers theme which was broken down into individual It’s been great to see some new faces, at both groups. This month we had some useful information from Suffolk rewards and this is largely due to the support that they also notes for different instruments by the roll of a dice. Family Carers and Topcats. receive at home. In the new year we have some more interesting visitors planned. On Thursday 18th January, at school, Sian Monteith Our Year 9s had the opportunity to go out with Miss Berry to for SENDIASS will be telling us about her service and we shall be meeting at Beccles on the 26th January. ‘Crucial Crew’ where they learnt about safety in community. A We have the following dates booked into the school calendar for 2018. It would be great to meet more parents and very valuable morning where everyone learnt lots. carers. Please feel free to pop in for a chat and a cuppa. Dates for the new year are: Our Christmas carol service on 8th December was a big success, I hope you enjoyed it! Beccles- 26th January, 23rd February, 27th April, 29th June At school- 18th January, 22nd February, 15th March, 23rd April, 18th June, 19th July This term we have been covering the following in lessons- Year 7 – History - History of . We meet at reception at 1pm, and the afternoon finishes about 2.30pm. Science – Teeth and Healthy eating. Wishing you all a fun Christmas and a Happy New Year. Year 8 – History - History of Lowestoft. Sam Bover Science - Space investigating different materials. Year 9 – Science – The structure of the eye and different senses. B and V – Christianity, bible stories. Please be mindful of the following information:-

We have just received a highly important message from the Suffolk Cyber Crime Team within the Suffolk Constabulary. KS3 and KS4 Performing Arts groups, visited Benjamin Britten Academy of Music and There are accounts on both ‘Instagram’ and ‘Snapchat’ that are currently actively seeking young people to follow them to gain access Mathematics to watch their ‘2017 Christmas Spectacular’. There was dancing, drama and to a video that is of an extremely inappropriate nature involving young children. This of course holds legal complications should you music alongside the beautiful choir and even a surprise visit from The Incredible Hulk! The open the link, send it on or store the data on any devices. performance was enjoyed by all (even some of the adults had a little boogie) and students The police are not looking to criminalise anyone just to minimise the amount of young people this targets. They are actively working were a credit to the school both at Benjamin Britten and out in the community. behind the scenes to take this material down as soon as possible. The guidance from the police is for students not to accept any friend requests from these accounts, not to correspond with these accounts and to delete any data or material immediately should this be on any handsets or tablets. The accounts are set up using different spellings and formats. However, the main link is ‘Tanya Kellock’ or ‘Tanya k’ and has an image of a young girl with blonde and brown hair depending on the account. On a positive note, I have recently received copies of an Online Safety magazine that has been put together by Parent zone (A website offering advice and support) and Vodafone. It is full of handy information and advice around lots of Online Safety issues for the whole Independent Travel Training family and has a section that covers parental controls for your home internet. Five of our Year 11 pupils have completed their Independent Travel Training for of their journeys to school and were presented Copies of these magazines have been sent home with your child, so please keep an eye out for them. with certificates in Key Stage 4 assembly by travel trainers Allison McCowen and Tara Mullen. A huge well done to Keeley, Reece, I hope you have a Happy and Safe Christmas. Dylan, Shane and Luke. Their next steps will be to learn their other journey to or from school with the travel trainers. Some of our other Key stage 4 pupils have begun their travel training and others have been referred and will start in the new year. If you would like to Lee Humphreys – Online Safety Lead know more about this excellent service provided by Suffolk County Council please contact me at the school.

Year 11 College Visits Outreach

Most of our Year 11 have enjoyed trips to Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth campuses of , and both Easton and Otley The end of a busy term for SENDAT Outreach. We have several events to look forward to during the colleges. These visits provide further information on the different colleges and the opportunities available. The pupils were able to gain Spring Term 2018. We have five training sessions booked for mainstream schools and will be delivering an insight into college life and support to make choices on their future learning. Some of the Year 11 have already made course the TALKABOUT programme, as part of our commissioned service, to a mainstream school who are keen applications to colleges and we are planning to complete others in the new term. The colleges all have course advice days coming up to improve the outcomes for their pupils. Our team wish you a very happy Christmas; here’s to an that families are welcome to attend – please see the college websites for details or contact me at the school for more information. exciting 2018! Julie Broxup, Louise Meaden, Rachel Orves Louise Holmes, Transition Support Worker